The maroon lacquer with red pinstriping exterior was reportedly repainted several years ago. It features a 4-piece hood, chrome bumpers, a chrome grille, dual headlights with body-color buckets, and a tilting windshield.
It rides on black steel wheels with V8-logo center caps, trim rings, and whitewall bias-ply tires.
“The bench seat, interior trim, and door panels are upholstered in brown vinyl,” the listing states. “Features include a tan vinyl floor mat and a floor-mounted manual shifter. Additional features include a keyed steering wheel lock, an original AM radio with a speaker, a body-color steel dashboard with a simulated woodgrain fascia, and a brown 3-spoke banjo steering wheel. The seller notes that some seams on the base of the driver’s seat are coming apart.”
RM Sotheby’s is one of the biggest auction houses in the whole of the United States. And they often have some truly stunning cars up for sale, be it classic Mercedes Gullwings or iconic Maserati race cars.
This car up for sale though is truly sensational. It is a 1935 Ford V8 Spider, and it is possible that this was the sole Ford car bodied by Carrozzeria Viotti of Turin. This car forms part of Sotheby’s Monterey auction in August 2022.
This car is a far cry from the standard machines you would expect to see a Ford V8 engine in. The results of the Viotti metalwork and the Ford V8 though are truly stunning. Allegedly, the car got built at the request of Count Giovanni “Johnny” Lurani, an Italian count who was also a noted racing driver.
The car also at some point found itself in Argentina, before its discovery in the 1960s and then exportation to the United States. This is where it remained in a private collection for some four decades before it was then acquired by Oscar Davis in 2015.
Rollin Willingham (pronounced “Raw-lin”) has a whole fleet of old cars that are ready to hop in and cruise, and each of them has its own soul and character. He calls this ’48 Ford Super Deluxe his “classy grocery getter.” But it wasn’t always that way.
Rollin’s ’48 has come a long way from being a multi-colored, barely running beater.
When Rollin got the sedan, it was anything but classy. He had just lost another of his classics to an accident that totaled it when a friend offered up this grungy sedan at a good price. Rollin snatched it up to fill the newly empty hole in his lineup. But the car he brought home was barely running, and really ugly. The body was covered in old red primer, and the fenders were a different color. “I like patina,” says Rollin, “but this thing was ugly.”
Rollin is a professional car builder by day, and he got to work immediately on his new sedan as his busy schedule allowed. With friends and club members by his side, he began to sort the car out mechanically. The 239-inch 59A flathead stayed under the hood, but Rollin used a Speedway Motors kit to add an alternator which, along with a replacement wiring harness, converted the car to run 12 volts. The stock driveline lives on behind the flatmotor, but everything was tweaked, tuned, and repaired by Rollin to make the car a reliable driver. The stock stance was brought down in the rear with longer spring shackles, and the radial tires on steelies help it to run straight down the Phoenix freeways.
The stock flattie lives on, even in the desert heat, thanks to a good fan and excellent maintenance.
Rollin straightened out the body and shot it with a fresh coat of hot rod flat black. A few dings and imperfections remain to remind him that this car is meant to be a driver and not a showboat. The effect is that of a classy car that can be driven anywhere without losing sleep over rock chips, door dings, and rogue shopping carts.
Landon Rush likes to keep busy. He’s a husband, a father, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran who is still serving in the National Guard, and he owns five, no wait… I think it’s six, hot rods. I’m really excited to have one of those hot rods in GHR, his very cool and very classic Flathead powered 1929 Ford Roadster Pickup.
“I’ve only had the pickup about a year,” Landon told me. “It was a quick build. I had a hot rod years ago, then I got into customs and trucks, and I wanted to get another hot rod. I saw this on Criag’s List. I sold my ‘58 Chevy truck to pick it up. I blew it all apart and quickly redid everything.”
And Landon wasn’t kidding about redoing everything. Body, frame, engine, transmission, rear end, suspension, interior – the whole works. It was amazing to me that he did it all in one year.
“The one thing I have going for me is that I work quick,” he said. “I try to do quality work in the least amount of time without taking any shortcuts. I get ’em done so I can enjoy them.”
Of course the Flathead engine between the frame rails caught my eye. It’s a 1950 OB8 model, displacing 239 cubic inches. It has all new ISKY internals and Edelbrock aluminum heads and intake manifold. That manifold has two Stromberg 97 two-barrel carbs, complete with vintage scoops from Lucky Burton of Lucky’s Speed Equipment Parts (@luckyburton on Instagram), mounted on it.
And just in case you haven’t been paying attention, that’s a ‘29 Ford with a Flathead engine, dual Strombergs, and ISKY and Edelbrock components. Can you get a more classic hot rod than that?
The Flathead’s exhaust is also vintage. The chromed exhaust headers mount up to a megaphone exhaust pipe that Landon constructed from cutting a 1935 Ford driveshaft in half. “That’s what they were doing back back in the 50s,” Landon told me. “They’d take the driveshaft and chop it in half and use that to make the lake pipes.” He welded a 90 degree bend with a flange on to the header and the megaphone exhaust pipe bolts to the flange.
I asked Landon if he had any mufflers in that exhaust. “No,” he said. “It’s straight pipe. And it’s got a little bit of a lope because of the ISKY cam. I like to get on it. It’s loud as sh…”
Well let’s just say Landon said it can be really loud.
They say veterans proudly wear their scars and decorations for all to see, and that apparently goes for cars, too, not only for the humans that have served in wars.
In the world of cars, only the ones that get to race end up becoming veterans, as you can’t really slap that moniker on your daily. And in most recent times, one didn’t get to look and feel to us as veteran as the Ford we have here.
Born in 1938 in the Blue Oval’s stables, it quickly embraced a racing career, and was often seen doing its thing at the Brewerton Speedway in New York state. It ventured beyond that, from time to time, making its present felt at tracks in Atlanta, Virginia, or South Boston.
As far as we were able to find out, no major name in the racing scene is linked to this Ford, but that doesn’t make it less appealing. Sure, it probably impacts the price, which reads just $15,995, but not its appeal.
Like any proper racer of its kind, the Ford got some of its body parts stripped and others added from place to place. Up front, the exposed sides of the vehicle let the image of a 1949 Ford flathead engine come to light. The powerplant works by means of a Ford truck 3-speed manual transmission and truck differential and breathes courtesy of a new exhaust system.
According to lore, and old markings on the car, this classic stock car ran races at the Brewerton Speedway in New York state. At some point, the Ford found its way south to Atlanta and then on to Virginia where it continued to participate in Vintage Races at tracks like South Boston well into the ’90s. This ’38 Ford is a vintage stock car from another era. When the coupe was converted into a race car, the body was moved back 5” on the frame for better weight balance. The exterior’s current respray is white enamel with period correct vinyl logos and numbers. Inside this interior is classic racer. A WWII bomber donated the tub seat/seat belt and the driver compartment is protected by a steel roll cage (no Hans device needed). The dash holds period correct Stewart Warner gauges and the driver’s door is welded shut. A Ford Flathead, circa 1949, furnishes horsepower and is backed by a Ford truck 3-speed manual transmission and truck differential. Other mechanical upgrades include:
• Rebuilt carburetor • New ignition components • Rebuilt Ford truck radiator/new hoses • Rebuilt water pumps • Manual and electric fuel pumps • Aluminum fuel tank • New exhaust system • New 6 volt battery (positive-ground) • New master cylinder/wheel cylinders • Bassett Wide-5 steel wheels • New Hoosier asphalt tires w/period-correct Firestone logos
The suspension was modified for racing and a competition right front hub has been installed. This old-school Ford stock car will be a fun addition to someone’s collection. The vehicle is sold on a ‘Bill of Sale’. ALL VEHICLES SOLD “AS IS”.
Only a handful of photographs depicting Leopold Garcia’s El Chicito are known to exist. Even fewer of his other car, known only as the City Car. Garcia himself remains something of an enigma to automotive historians, and the whereabouts of his vehicles were kept so secret that some supposed the cars no longer existed. Yet all of that stands to change later this year when a Route 66 Visitors Center and museum in Albuquerque, not far from where Garcia built his cars, will open with the two cars on display.
“It’s an honor to have these cars showcased at the Route 66 Visitor’s Center,” said Klarissa Peña, an Albuquerque city councilor whose district includes the visitors center. “Leopoldo Garcia lived in New Mexico, so it’s a fitting tribute to honor his innovative work here along Route 66.”
Garcia, according to researcher Robert Cunningham, studied engineering and sculpture at the University of New Mexico before apparently coming to own a salvage yard in El Llanito, a tiny settlement just north of Bernalillo, which in turn is just north of Albuquerque. Cunningham noted that Garcia built a small three-wheeled electric vehicle able to “be operated by a person with only one good limb” before he set out to put his own stamp on contemporary auto design.
According to an April 1957 Motor Life article on his El Chicito, Garcia “looked at the current boxy styles from Detroit and concluded that he would create something not so square.” He started with a 1940 Ford chassis that he cut down to a wheelbase of just 80 inches. (The AMC Gremlin, for comparison’s sake, rode on a 96-inch wheelbase.) The Motor Life article reported that Garcia worked out his design on paper and in clay before roaming his junkyard in search of “curved sections which came closest to approximating the pre-conceived form.” Garcia apparently characterized that form as “fleshy,” Motor Life described it as “organic rather than geometric,” and in that vein Garcia later rechristened El Chicito as Bubbles.
Once he had all his pieces, he then started to weld them together, adding a couple late Thirties Ford taillamps, a Continental-style spare tire cover, headlamps in the shape of eyes, and a homebuilt convertible top. The design essentially precluded doors, so Garcia decided to make entry easier by hinging the windshield to tilt forward.
For power, the Motor Life article claims an unspecified Ford V-8 engine, but Cunningham wrote that Garcia used a 1954 Mercury V-8, which would make it a 161-hp, four-barrel, 256-cu.in., overhead-valve Y-block. No details on the transmission, but Garcia apparently decided that the exhaust pipes could double as rear bumpers. In total, he claimed to have spent just $800 building the 2,200-pound car and displayed it as far afield as Sioux Falls, Minneapolis, Des Moines, and Indianapolis
This is an original Ardun V8 engine, or perhaps more correctly this is a modified Ford Flathead V8 engine with Ardun heads and a slew of other upgrades that is now vastly more powerful than it was from the factory.
This highly modified flathead V8 is topped with eight Weber carburetors and a pair of Ardun heads, meaning it’ll be vastly more powerful than the engines originally were from Ford.
The Ardun OHV heads developed a legendary reputation in the hot rod world, they allowed people to modify their Ford Flathead V8 relatively quickly into an engine producing 200 bhp or more, up from 65 bhp in stock trim.
This 15 minute long video gives an excellent look deep inside a Ford Flathead V8 that’s been fitted with Ardun OHV heads.
The name Ardun is a portmanteau of Arkus and Duntov, the hyphenated surname of Zora Arkus-Duntov and his brother Yuri, immigrants from Belgium by way of Russia who would go on to have an oversized impact on both the hot rod and sports car worlds in the United States around the mid-20th century.
The two men had arrived in the United States as refugees after the outbreak of WWII in Europe, they immediately turned their attention and engineering acumen to helping the war effort. They founded the Ardun Mechanical Corporation in 1942, initially producing dies and punches for ammunition and later produced parts for aircraft.
After the war they retooled, Zora and George Kudasch designed a set of high-performance overhead valve heads for the flathead Ford V8. The Ford Flathead V8 had become an almost ubiquitous performance engine in the United States since its introduction in 1932, as it was cheap to buy and easy to fix.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the engine was its propensity for overheating, largely due to an inefficient exhaust port design that siamesed the two inner ports on each side. This mostly affected trucks, but it reduced performance in automobiles too, and Zora knew that a good overhead valve head would solve the issue once and for all.
He took his design concepts to Ford who showed no interest whatsoever, a significant mistake from the company as just a few short years later they would witness the introduction of the Chevy small block V8 – an engine that blew them out of the water.
Zora and Yuri put the heads into production themselves, several flaws in the original design came to light, and significant time was spent ironing them out and turning them into a reliable, pair of high-performance heads.
Hot rods and land speed racers fitted with Ardun heads set a slew of world records out on the Bonneville Salt Flats, one example set a C/Street Roadster record of 162.61 mph in 1951, producing over 303 bhp at 5,250 rpm.
Vast distinctions exist among overhauling, rebuilding, restoring, and blueprinting engines. As a customer, you should know exactly what you are seeking from a machine shop. Communication, clarity, and a clear understanding of terminology are critical to achieving the desired result.
Basically, an overhaul could include deglazing cylinder walls,re-ringing existing pistons, a possible bearing change, and installing new gaskets, just to get the engine running. Rebuilding may include new parts but not necessarily complete machining of cylinder bores or crank grinding; it might require only a polish. Restoration usually includes all new parts and complete machining to factory specs as outlined in the factory manual. Blueprinting includes installing all new premium parts, complete machining to specified tolerances, balancing, and more to achieve optimum performance and durability.
Depending upon where you live, finding a machine shop to tackle your block may or may not be easy. The flathead is not a complicated engine, but it does have its idiosyncrasies, and a shop that typically rebuilds small-block Chevys might not be the place to go. We mean no disrespect, but the shop needs to know flatheads. If it doesn’t, don’t pressure the shop into learning or experimenting on yours. It might be a costly mistake for both parties.
Be sure to take plenty of photographs of your block and any little identifying marks it may have. You don’t want to hand over a fairly good block but receive a different and perhaps poorer-quality block after the work is done. You might even want to put your own mark on the block before handing it over or shipping it out of town.
I heard one story of a guy shipping a complete, brand-new rotating assembly to an engine builder. When the engine came back, however, it soon seized. Tearing it down revealed that the builder had switched out the good internals for a set of not-so-good originals. It pays to be aware of such possibilities.
It’s always smart to do plenty of research before you settle on a machine shop. You can learn a lot about a shop by checking the Internet, where people are quick to air their grievances. You can also ask fellow enthusiasts about their experiences. Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is the phrase to keep in mind
Blueprinting and Balancing
These words hold much mystique, and summon images of a black art. However, they mean nothing more than making sure that parts are balanced and that the engine is assembled to certain specifications and tolerances recommended by the manufacturer for optimum performance for the desired application, such as street use, racing, or touring.
If you are rebuilding a stock engine, it’s fairly easy to follow the Ford specifications found in the various service bulletins. Most people building hot rod engines use components from a variety of sources. Nevertheless, you should still follow specs for main bearing clearances, ring gap clearances, cam timing, head port and chamber volumes, torque for bolts, and so on.
Factory specs are parameters that suffice for mass-production engines (taking into account time, labor, materials, and so on). They meet the driving needs of the general public with a broad range of driving styles. A blueprinted engine meets and exceeds those factory parameters.
Theoretically, there is no tolerance for a blueprinted engine. It either is or it isn’t, and there’s no in-between. If you build two engines to factory specs, there will always be variances between rod and main bearing clearances, variances in piston clearances, deck height differences, valve-spring pressure differences, and intake and exhaust port and chamber volume differences. If you blueprint an engine for racing at Bonneville, for example, there should be no variances. It should be built to a specific race spec.
Properly blueprinting an engine takes many hours, a lot of patience, and a lot of skill. To achieve a properly running, reliable engine, you need to follow procedures and not just throw it all together.
Balancing is also worth worrying about, because a well-balanced engine is like a well-balanced checkbook: Keep it on the good side and life will be good. Theoretically, to do it correctly you should preass emble the engine before balancing the components, so that any subsequent machine process or task does not affect the balancing act. The order of the day is: pre-assemble, machine if necessary, and balance.
If you are running a mixture of aftermarket components (crank, rods, pistons, and so on, all from different suppliers), it is essential to balance the parts. Of course, you can avoid this work if you buy a rotating assembly from one manufacturer. Even if you do, it is still worth checking the parts for quality. I was a crank grinder in my youth, and there were days when I ground good cranks and days when I was in a hurry and just wanted to get it done. Those grinds were within tolerance but were not my best work.
Weight matching and dynamic balancing are the two steps to balancing an engine.
Weight Matching
To weight match, you weigh the pistons and the rods individually on a balancing scale to determine the lightest of each. Then, remove a little metal from each, until all of the pistons weigh the same as the lightest piston and all of the rods weigh the same as the lightest rod. Parts are usually measured within .25 gram.
A balancing fulcrum is also used to determine how heavy a rod is at either end. If a rod is a little heavier on the big end (the main bearing end), a little weight is removed from that end to balance the rod. (The procedure employed at H&H is outlined in this chapter.)
Dynamic Balancing
Dynamic balancing is the process of balancing the rotating assembly, including crank, rods, and pistons. Although the crank itself is put in the balancer, bob weights are installed to replicate the rod and piston assemblies. Be sure to record all of the weights for the rods, pistons, and associated components; they will be needed later when you balance the crank.
Almost no factory production engine comes precision balanced. Even some so-called performance engines aren’t balanced to within 1 gram, as are the engines balanced by H&H on its Hines electronic balancer.
Does balancing make any difference? The answer is yes. According to Mike, “A well-balanced flathead makes for a smooth-running car. It produces efficient power by eliminating power-robbing vibration and imbalance.” A flathead is balanced internally, as opposed to a 454 Chevy, a 400 Chevy small-block, and 460 Ford trucks, which are balanced externally; each uses a harmonic balancer.
Balancing and Honing the Rods
Although the rods produced by companies such as Scat are extremely well balanced, Mike likes to double-check them because balancing flathead internals is important to a smooth-running engine. In addition, Mike suggests that if you’re reusing stock rods, you should definitely resize the big ends, because years of wear will have forced them out of round. Moreover, you should definitely balance them, because Ford’s tolerances were more liberal. Ford service bulletins give an acceptable weight of 451 to 455 grams; with a little care, all of the rods can weight exactly the same.
Assuming that your desire is a smooth-running, long-lasting engine, then taking your time and being careful will be rewarded. Precisely honing both rods is paramount.
You can balance connecting rods at home, and with a little care, you can match them exactly. You will enjoy a feeling of satisfaction for a job well done.
This is where it starts… the stock 1929 Ford Tudor on the day I took delivery. From here, there will be a series of subtle hop-ups to arrive at a powerful interwar sleeper. Sorry–I couldn’t resist a bit of fun with a sepia-toned filter. Photos by the author except where noted.
A few weekends ago, members of my club generously descended upon my garage for a big “thrash” to help me finish my 1931 Ford Model A/B bobtail speedster. When father-and-son Barnstormers VSC (“Vintage Speed Club”) members Brian and Matthew Cholerton arrived, they were towing my next project: a 1929 Ford Model A Tudor sedan. It came at just the right time, because it would prove a positive counterbalance to some unexpected setbacks with the speedster, validating the wisdom of having at least two vehicles to play with.
For almost as long as I had been working on the speedster, I had known that I also wanted a hot-rodded sedan, so when I discovered that Brian had one and that he was planning on selling, we quickly came to an agreement. He even very generously towed it the 200-plus miles from his home to mine. Though I wasn’t quite mentally or financially ready for it, there it was, exactly what I had been hoping for.
And what I had been hoping for was an affordable Model A Tudor in running condition with a serviceable body, but one that wasn’t rare or in such good condition that it would be a good candidate for restoration. As someone whose tendencies run toward preserving historical artifacts (rather than altering or even restoring them), I knew it would be a long time before I’d find one that fit the bill as well as this one did whenever I finally decided I was “ready” to buy one.
As far as this particular sedan goes, and 1929 Tudors in general, they are indeed special… because with 523,922 of them rolling out of Ford’s factories, they hold the record for the greatest number produced of any Model A in any body style for any year. So this means I don’t have to feel quite as bad about hot-rodding the A, at least from a rarity standpoint
In terms of condition, while it starts up, runs, and stops well, has a remarkably clean underside, and no significant dents or rust, it appears that the owner before Brian might have begun restoring the car but then lost interest and hastily put it back together for sale. So while a new correct “Cobra Long Grain” vinyl top had been installed, many other condition issues went partially or entirely unaddressed.
Most obvious of these: Its paint demonstrates a tendency to chip, its driver’s-side door is significantly out of alignment, and its interior is limited to only seat covers and door panels made from cardboard boxes upholstered in gray crushed velvet (crushed velvet?!). Behind those door panels, the metal window anti-rattlers–both bent, and for some reason at the same angle–had been loosely stashed and, along with one internal upright support with broken rivets, had been creating a significant racket when driving.
My friend Austen at ozcraft.co.uk has been building a belly tanker to run at Bonneville, progress is looking very good since my last visit, will pop over soon to take a look at developments up close.
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